Sad Hill

Sad Hill Debut album ‘Good If It Goes’ is OUT NOW

What do you do when reality doesn’t quite match up to your dreams? When your old band breaks up, you’re staring down the barrel of your mid-life and you’ve suddenly got a family, still living in the same town you’d been swearing you’d leave since you were a teenager?

For the three members of Australian trio Sad Hill, the answer is simple: park the dreams of rock stardom, start anew and make a record, because it’s all you know how to do. Good If It Goes’ 10 tracks took less than a year to write and only two weeks to record, but it’s the culmination of over a decade’s worth of blood, sweat and spent ambition. Drummer Dane Knowles and guitarist/vocalist Greg Sanders spent years on the road together in Emperors, clocking up multiple tours around the country, writing together, gaining national radio airplay but falling short of their youthful ambition of a life revolving around playing in bands. From the frenetic opening screech of Freaking Out through to the closing refrain of final track Pat Wilson’s Ghost, Sad Hill’s debut is brimming with a sense of purpose and focus that recalls Sunny Day Real Estate and Jimmy Eat World – one that only comes with musical maturity.

This is a record about reconciling dreams with reality. Ghosts, mortality and difficult realisations rear their head in every song: a young friend has a minor heart attack but treats it as a punchline (Heart Attack). The allure of distant cities still holds sway, but the chances of moving give way to family and obligation (Chicago). A friend checks themselves into a mental institution (New Warden). You’re forced to make a choice between being defined by your old resentments or letting them go (Pat Wilson’s Ghost). The trio took two weeks off work and hunkered down at Blackbird Studios in Perth with engineer Dave Parkin, treating the recording process like a (working) holiday.

Gyroscope frontman Dan Sanders served as the band’s unofficial confidant, dropping into the studio on a few occasions to offer his encouragement and take part in some group vocal takes. Good If It Goes is brimming with that sardonic mix of humour and heft – as the lyric in Heart Attack goes, “heavy as a punchline, funny as a heart attack.”